Tricks, No Treats

More Tales Of Misspent Youth

All Hallow's Eve. A night where children's minds turn to plastic pumpkins full of bite-size candy bars, and prankster's minds turn to novel ways to annoy neighbors.

I'm afraid I've spent many of my past Halloweens doing dastardly deeds that really ought to be forgotten about. However, the blogbeast must be fed, and its favorite meals are made up of the rancid underbelly of our sordid pasts.

To be completely honest, I'm still not entirely sure how I made it out of adolescence without some outraged person beating me senseless with a two by four, or imbedding a shotgun-sized dose of rocksalt into my rapidly retreating buttocks. I pulled some really spectacularly stupid pranks. The ones on Halloween really stand out, since that was the night we pulled out all the stops.

F'rinstance, there was the time me & my buddies went trick-or-treating, despite being much too old for the pastime. I guess we were freshmen or sophomores in high school that year.

Our costumes were simple. Long army surplus rain ponchos, with the hoods drawn tightly over our heads. I seem to recall masks or bandannas tied over our faces, until they grew too stifling. Oh, yeah, the long shiny machetes. That really rounded out the costume.

Our modus operandi was to approach the unsuspecting homeowner's front door obliquely, snaking through the shrubbery. We'd pounce upon the porch, and commence to hammering upon the door with the butt ends of the machetes, loudly ordering "OPEN... THE DOOR!!!!" to the hapless occupants.

Usually, the homeowner would give up the goods. I think they were afraid not to. Every so often, someone would ask us if we weren't a bit old for trick-or-treating. Bastards! How dare they deny us candy!

In those cases, (and a few others, just 'cause we were grotty kids) the pumpkin that usually sat outside their door would be the vessel that received our adolescent wrath. We'd wander away until they shut the door, then leap back to the pumpkin. Our shiny blades would go 'Snicker-Snack!', and the jack-o-lantern would be reduced to a heap of orange debris. Then, we'd dash off to the next block for more handfuls of fun-pak Skittles and gory pumpkincide.

Then, there was the year of the Hefty Lawn bags. Over in a more affluent part of town, when Halloween season rolled around, it also meant that those huge capitalist lawns needed a lot of leaf-raking. This led to large piles of leaf-filled trash bags left by the roadside for trash pickup.

It didn't take a lot of effort to realize the potential for pranking with all those leaves. No, we didn't dump 'em in the school pool, or set 'em alight. Too much effort in one case, and too little return in the latter.

Nope, we used the bags of leaves as camouflage. See, when you're young, and don't own or maintain a car, nothing's funnier than bombarding cars with water balloons and/or chicken ova. The damage potential to paint and passenger doesn't occur to you, 'cause you're just a nitwit kid.

So, after arming ourselves with aforementioned water balloons and several cartons of Grade AA Jumbo eggs, a couple of buddies and I secreted ourselves amidst several ginormous piles of leaves alongside a bend of the road in Ritzy-ville. When a car came along, it would get pelted from three different directions at once. When the outraged passenger squealed to a stop and leaped out to search the underbrush, there was no one to be found.

Once or twice, an especially bright motorist would commence to kicking the pile of Hefty bags. They even rooted through the pile looking for a kid. They didn't find any, as the kids (who *were* in the piles) were completely wrapped from head to toe in leaf-filled Hefty bags. Except for a hole in the top bag for our faces (covered by a camo bandanna w/ eyehole cutouts), we looked just like a bag o' leaves.

We weren't caught, and expended our ordnance before retiring to a local condominium community to trick or treat dressed as "suburban leaf mummies". "Joey" caught a good kick to the ribs from one of the drivers, but the leaves mostly muffled it. Fun Halloween, except we itched like mad for the next week from all the leaf mites.

Finally, there's Streetlight Superman. But I think I'll leave that tale for next Halloween...

Monday, October 30, 2006

The Flaming Shit Sack

Doggypoo delenda est!

I think I'm gonna do something shamefully immature either tonight or tomorrow night. I can't believe it's come to this, but my personal sense of honor dictates that I take a stand, and my personal sense of humor insists that I do it in a way that'll amuse me.

Let me start at the beginning...

I went out shopping yesterday afternoon, stocking up on another week's worth of supplies. Upon my return to the house, I was greeted in the most slobbery manner by my neighbor's dog, 'Muttface'.

Now, Muttface is some sort of boxer/pit bull mix, with perhaps a bit of retriever on the side. She's an ugly, ugly dog. If you took the worst qualities of all the above dogs, she's got them. However, in spite of her breeding and hideous looks, she's the sweetest dog imaginable. When she wags her tail her whole body gyrates, such is her joy at seeing a new crotch to sniff.

I spend a few moments petting Muttface and letting her know what a perfectly ugly dog she is. Muttface doesn't care, she just wants to lick my face and get her belly rubbed. We pass on the face licking (Muttface eats a lot of poo), but after the belly is dutifully rubbed, she's off to sniff new things and I need to unload the truck.

I'm gathering up my purchases, when a whiff of something really foul catches my attention. I spin about, and sure enough Muttface is in full squat, grunting out a steamer on *MY* front lawn.

Dammit. That's some foul, reeky dogpoo. When she's recycling the excreta of the half-dozen neighborhood dogs, you know it's gotta carry a unique aroma. I make a mental note to go scrape it up after I get the groceries put away, and lock up the truck's doors.

Meanwhile, Muttface has finished her business, and goes into that exuberant post-crap doggie dance, the one where they kick up the grass around their just-extruded buttloaf.

I head into the house, put up the groceries, then head for the bathroom to take a leak. Then, down the hall to the bedroom, where I fire up computer to check email.

About the time I sit down, I catch a whiff of... no, it can't be. I've got to be having some kind of mental flashback to the awful smell of Muttface's dogpoop. Besides, she was in the middle of the yard. No way could I have stepped in any dogpoo on the sidewalk...

Sniff sniff... Ew. Still stanky. Time for the shoe check. Right shoe OK... Left shoe... COMPLETELY COVERED IN DOGSHIT!! DAMMIT!! Muttface must've launched a fresh turd onto the sidewalk doing her doggie dance, and I didn't notice it.

Realization dawns on me. I've been all over the got-damned house. Tracked poo on the marble tile in the entryway. On the living room carpet, on the bathroom fuzzy-rugs, on the oriental runner in the hallway!!!

Closer inspection revealed a surprising lack of poo-tracks. I'd stepped in fallen leaves on the way into the house, which had adhered to the fresh dogturd, making a barrier between poo and carpet.

I'm afraid my favorite Rockport boat shoes are a complete write-off, since you can't get all the poo out of the siped sole, and the leather's tainted too.

If I'd have had to drag out the steam cleaner and the mop, Muttface might've gotten a special anti-freeze milkshake last night. It's unfair to blame the dog, though. She's just doing what dogs "doo".

I do, however, blame my neighbors. You're supposed to keep your dogs under control, and at the very least, make sure they crap on your yard and not your neighbor's yard.

So, I'm thinking that tonight or tomorrow night, after a 25 year hiatus, the flaming shitsack is going to make an encore appearance. I'll gather up all the dogturds on my yard, put 'em in a paper sack, then sneak over to their front porch, set it alight, then ring the doorbell and run.

A person's first reaction on seeing a small fire on their front porch is usually to stomp it out, thereby coating their shoe sole in warmed-over dog turds. Maybe I'll put a few lamp-oil soaked rags in the bag to make sure it takes a few more stomps than usual. Then, I can blame it on the hoodlums that live over the back fence.

Hmmm... On further reflection, I'm getting too old & pear-shaped to ring doorbells and run. This calls for a time-delay ignition system... A lit cigarette wired to a firework fuse, that'll do it. The screaming of the roman candle going off will work better than a doorbell! Plus, they all know that I don't smoke, so they really won't ever suspect me! Bwahahahaaaa!!!

Friday, October 27, 2006

Year #2 Of Baboon Pirates

730 Days Of Blathering, And We're Still Mostly Content-Free!

Wow. Two years of (mostly) daily blogging. Kinda boggles the mind, don't it?

Year #2 has been eventful, to say the least. Looking up and down my blogroll, there's been births, deaths, blogmeets, house fires, car fires, comedy & tragedy in equal helpings. Saying hello to new faces, and seeing old faces fade away.

Next year promises more of the same, and I'm hoping for a heavy helping of comedy, maybe not so much tragedy. Still, we play the cards we're dealt, and that's all she wrote.

Thanks for sticking around for another year, friends & neighbors. There's much more Baboon Pirates goodness to come!

Loafin' Around

Eric the Straight White Guy regaled us recently with tales of a meatloaf gone awry. Due to the use of regular rice as opposed to Minute Rice, his loaf had a bit more crunch than he bargained for.

My meatloaf has a distinctive haggis-like quality, 'cause I use lots of onions and oatmeal for filler, as opposed to crackermeal or breadcrumbs. I forgo the usual sheep's stomach that a haggis needs, since a) they're hard to find, and b) who in their right mind would stuff food in a sheep's gut?? I'll give the Scots their due for shortbread, whiskey and the deep-fried Mars Bar, but offal is a bit much to swallow. Literally...

I do "ruin" my meatloaf by putting on a sizable layer of Heinz catsup on top, letting it bake on top so it's thick and tomato-ey. If I've got a few extra packets of Whataburger catsup around, I'll use that, since they have the best catsup on the planet. I called up their customer info line asking why I couldn't buy their special blend of catsup in bottles, like you can with Long John Silver's Malt Vinegar, and they told me they'd rather have me come in and buy their fries instead of putting their catsup on Mickey D's fries. They make a good point...

Eric's tale of crunchy meatloaf was good, but the funniest meatloaf story I've heard came from my friend Rockhauler. His dad was making meatloaf one day, and while assembling ingredients, he accidently picked up the wrong can. Instead of adding in a can of evaporated milk, he poured in a can of sweetened condensed milk. Rockhauler says it was so bad that even the dog wouldn't eat it. That, my friends, is some bad meatloaf!

Here's some good Meat Loaf. Back when I had a full head of long hippie hair, I could pull off a pretty good Meat Loaf imitation. About a dozen years ago, I really wanted to dress up as the characters from the "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" video for Halloween. I've got a friend who, IMHO, could do a great imitation of Karla DeVito. I don't think I could have asked her to squeeze into all that white Spandex while maintaining a straight face and pure motives, so, sadly, it never happened. I still think we would have won the local costume contests by a landslide...

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Bad House Hacks

Bob Vila Wants To Throw A Hammer At You...

As a frequent practitioner of the baling wire & duct tape method of auto repair, I can't claim to be without sin in regards to "creative engineering". OTOH, I do draw the line at employing sheer dumbassery when doing home repairs.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Tummy Tuesday

The Soft Underbelly Of Catblogging

Not all bloggers appreciate catblogging. Some of the "serious" bloggers liken it to posting pics of your toddlers, or a teenager posting angsty poetry. In other words, it's just more dreck to wade through whilst seeking out pearls of wisdom that the "serious" bloggers wish to bestow upon us. Also, some bloggers just hate cats!

Apparently, a blogger can sink even lower than catblogging. It seems that in addition to posting pics of dear Puss-Wuss and her catnip mouse, you can even be specific about showing off certain body parts of your feline. After watching Laurence and Elisson indulge in Tummy Tuesday, I figured, "What the hell". It's not like I'll ever be mistaken for a serious blogger anyway.

So, here's Pookie Cat's vast pillowy tummy, on Tummy Tuesday.

Full Disclosure: In the interests of good taste, I had to Photoshop out of the top right corner of the pic the used pair of underwear that Pookie Cat was rolling in just prior to me taking the picture. Some people read blogs while they eat, ya know...

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Speaking Of Toilets...

So, you're sitting there on a Sunday afternoon, drinking Diet Dr Pepper and watching TV, and this commercial for a disinfecting cleanser comes on that shows a bunch of kids playing hide & seek.

When you see a cute little kid crouch down behind the toilet bowl to hide, and it grosses you out so badly that you kinda erp a little bit of DDP into the back of your throat, that might be a sign you need to get off your ass and go clean the bathroom.

Random Weekend Stuff

Blogging When I Ought To Be Sleeping

My friend Connecticut Yankee and his wife are procreating! On one hand, this makes me very happy, as I get yet another chance to be "Unca Cap". OTOH, this means there's one more potential UConn/Kentucky fan out there. Y'all hurry up and move back down here, ConnYank. He/She's better off being a Longhorn fan these days!

In case you're wondering if Eric the SWG's unique blogging style is just a conceit, it appears not. He emails in exactly the same style!

Rorshach explains in great detail how to wash a Maine Coon Cat. Good stuff, R! I was actually contemplating putting Betsy Cat in the dishwasher. (OK, not really)

Friday, October 20, 2006

Waffling Around

Q: What has 6 legs and 10 teeth?A: The night crew at the Waffle House!

I've got a craving for a waffle. There's a Waffle House right down the road, but I can't go there. It's not time yet. I need to wait another year or so.

See, when I was in college, I'd head to the 'Awful House' in the wee hours of the morning with Rockhauler and a few of our cronies, and we'd put the fear of God into the night crew with our diabolical gustatory habits. Back in those days, Waffle House had an all-you-can-eat menu, where for $7 bux or so you could stuff yourself into a coma and have enough money left over to play the Waffle House Theme Song on the jukebox.

When you're living on $120 a month, hitting the Waffle House wasn't just a good idea, it was a survival strategy. You could go 2-3 days on one of those gorging sessions.

We'd see who could eat the most orders of food, an order consisting of the main item and two sides. My favorites were the patty melt with hash browns and white toast, the cheese omelette with hash browns and raisin toast, or pecan waffles with hash browns and grits. We'd always get the hash browns scattered, smothered & covered (served loose, with onions & cheese) because the other options were an additional charge.

Normally, we'd start dry-heaving at about the 4th or 5th order, but this one friend I'll call AnthroGuy could down 7 or 8 plates without stopping.

I'm firmly convinced the reason Waffle House quit offering the AYCE option was due to our late-night raping of their profit margins.

When Rockhauler and I reached the realization that our waistlines were reaching unhealthy sizes, we decided that our Waffle House visits had to come to an end. Still, as good Southern boys, we couldn't just quit cold turkey. So, we decided to taper off our visits. We had one last visit to pig out, then swore a solemn oath to not return for a year.

A year later, we dropped in again. Our tolerance for sub-par diner food was still strong, and we realized we might suffer a relapse if we were coming every year. So, we decided it was necessary to double the length of time between visits.

It was two years before we went again, and 4 years until the next visit. We're due for another visit in 2007. After that, we're due for visits in 2023, 2055, 2119 and 2247. At that point, I'll assume our jar-bound brains will get wheeled into the Waffle House, where they'll float a pecan waffle on top of the formaldehyde, and ladle in some maple syrup.

For now, though, I guess I'll head to IHOP for my waffle fix. Seems wrong to go to a pancake place for a waffle, but a promise is a promise!

Wanted: One Swimming Pool

High Fence Also Mandatory

99 degrees on the thermometer. Feh. I was sure I had a fever of at least 102.

I've been feeling a bit queasy and out of sorts all afternoon. Took a nap following dinner, and now I'm sitting here kinda wishing I could just yak and get it over with. That's not gonna happen, though. Not that kind of malady, I'm afraid.

Times like this, I wish I had one of those narrow lap pools, the kind that force water via pumps down the pool at 5 mph, and you swim against the current. I'd chill that bad boy down to about 60-65 degrees, hang a grab bar off the side, tie a floatie around my neck and just let the current wash over me for a while. I'd prefer standing under a waterfall or lying in a mountain stream, but they're kind of thin on the ground in these parts.

Hell, I'd settle for any pool right now. I'm starting to get unhealthily obsessed with submerging my carcass and lurking like an alligator for a few hours, so much so that I'm contemplating sneaking into my neighbor's pool at 4 am.

I'm trying to remember the last time I've had an opportunity to go swimming or even soak in a tub, and I'm drawing a blank. The tub in this house, and most of the hotels I've stayed in recently are just too shallow and narrow to even try and wedge myself into. The last thing my already tattered ego needs is having to call the Fire Dept. to use the Jaws of Life to extract my big ass from being stuck like a cork in a bottle. So, it's showers for washing, and every so often I try to figure out where I'd get a used horse trough to put in the back yard for occasional ablutions. I'd get one of those inflatable kiddie pools, except it'd leave a huge dead spot in the grass underneath it. That, and how do you get rid of 800 gallons of water discreetly?

Sigh. Guess I just need to bite the bullet and go down to Galveston and drop myself in the ocean. It's certainly large enough.

Good choice, Opus!

Rock me on the waterSister will you soothe my fevered browRock me on the water, maybe I'll rememberMaybe I'll remember howRock me on the waterThe wind is with me nowSo rock me on the waterI'll get down to the sea somehow...

Where's My Handbasket?

Don't Try To Post At 2:30 AM...

Well, I was gonna start a ranting bitch-session about the kind folks congratulating me on my 1st Class reservations on the Goin' To Hell Express, but one's commenter's probably just yankin' my chain, and I don't know the other guy, so I'm just gonna let it slide.

My initial reaction was to post an "Oh, yeah? Think that's sacrilegious? Check *THIS* out!" series of pictures, but that wouldn't do much except alienate my few remaining readers who are nice church-goin' folk.

Just by looking at the Flying Spaghetti Monster webpage, and reading some of the hatemail, there really are folks out there that get severely incensed by the whole thing.

To some people, the whole FSM parody is blasphemy with a capital B, and anyone not condemning the FSM creed is "mocking God" and is deserving of a short session on the whipping post before being burned at the stake. They're dead serious too. No doubt they'd light the fires themselves, given the opportunity, and congratulate themselves on their piety afterwards.

Just a cautionary note, illustrated below. You can be devout, and still not be right.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

My Prayers Are Answered!

As I was perusing Steve Graham's Hog On Ice blog, one of his sidebar ads startd to glow in a display of glorious heavenly light, burning straight into my very soul. In that moment, I knew one of life's treasures was about to be made available to me... for only $36.95 each.

Our Pasta, who art in a colander, draining be your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, on top some grated parmesan. Give us this day our garlic bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trample on our lawns. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us some pizza, for thine is the meatball, the noodle, and the sauce, (and five or six healthy splashes of Tabasco!) forever and ever. RAmen.

Marinated Swine Butt

Stan: Yeah. And you know? I think I learned something today, it doesn't matter if you're Christian or Jewish or Atheist or Hindu. Christmas still is about one very important thing.

Cartman: Yeah, ham!

Stan: No, not ham, you fat fuck!

OK, a bit early for Xmas ham recipes, perhaps, but I ran across this old favorite while going though some CD's I'd burned back in 2002. It's absolutely dee-lish, so if you're a ham-for-the-holidays person, print it out and keep it handy!

Cider-Soaked Baked Ham With Honey-Rum Glaze

Makes 8 servings, with big chunks of leftovers for sammiches.

Be sure you don't get an uncured chunk o' pig or a salt-cured country ham. You want a sugar-cured or smoked ham with the bone in -- the butt end, the shank end or the "picnic" shoulder. The last is the least expensive cut, and the fattiest, but also the tastiest!

Remove the rind and all but a thin layer of fat from ham. Place the ham in large baking dish or bowl. Cover with apple cider and 1 cup rum. Put in refrigerator overnight. Try to wake up at 3 am and turn the ham if it's not completely covered by the cider.

(Chef's Note: I use a large plastic bag, placed inside a large bowl. It's easier to turn the ham, and reduces spills.)

Remove ham from cider mixture. Reserve cider mixture. Make diagonal cuts through fat on top of ham to form 1 & 1/2-inch grid. Stud 1 whole clove in middle of each diamond.

Place ham on wire rack fitted into roasting pan. Add marinade to pan until it reaches rack, but not the ham.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Ionized Pussy

Tonight's the 2nd half of Laundry Night. Last night was skivvies and outerwear, tonight is t-shirts, bedding and towels. Boy, I'm living a high-speed cosmopolitan life, lemme tell ya!

While waiting for the dryer to finish my sheets, I took the opportunity to expand Betsy Cat's horizons and give her a lesson in high voltage phenomena and electric glow discharge.

I know, it sounds like I wired her up to Victor Frankenstein's monster-charging apparatus. Nothing of the sort. I just plugged in the plasma globe I've had here on my desk (mostly gathering dust), and sat it down in front of her to see what she'd do.

The verdict? One sniff, then it was ignored completely. Cats have no sense of wonder...

Next up, we introduce her to the new Shower Massage showerhead. She's getting kind of raggedy and dusty from hiding under the beds. Methinks it's bath time. 'Scuse me while I go get some leather gauntlets, hockey mask and chainmail vest.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Gratuitous Cute Kid Posting

I Can't Lay Claim To That Shirt... The Ones I Wanna Buy Him Are Much Worse.

It's tough being a chick magnet. We took my nephew Sammy to the local egg farm, and damned if the little yellow peeps didn't come flying out of the coops and stick all over him. He looked like a fuzzy ear of corn before we got all the chicks scraped off.

Friday, October 13, 2006

More Ranting & Raving

The worst part about listening to talk radio is Michael Savage the idiotic commercials. These things repeat endlessly, so you get to hear the stupidity at least twice on each trip to & from work.

I swear, if I ever meet that kid that can't decide what breakfast to get at McDonalds, I'm gonna ram a garden hose up his poop chute, staplegun it until it's watertight, and turn on the tap until he pops.

Oh, and let's make no mistake... Rich Chocolate Ovaltine sucks major ass. Tastes like what one of those M&M characters shits out when struck with dysentery.

Kurt talked about this next one earlier this week, but I'll repeat. Those radio ads wanting you to buy gold as an investment? Completely effin' useless, because they don't actually send you any gold. When you need your Krugerrands to buy canned food and shotgun shells after the Apocalypse, you need 'em NOW, not stuck in some vault in Poughkeepsie.

I'm puzzled by what kind of dumbass developed the recent commercial advertising houses for sale. The ads tell you that "people with last names starting with A through N are allowed (allowed? Exsqueeze me??) to call today, people with last names starting with O through Z can call tomorrow." They run this commercial every day, though, rendering that statement (which they make twice) pointless and ultimately destroying any credibility. Dumbasses.

What dumbass decided to put salsa in single serve packets? You can never get a hole ripped in 'em big enough to allow the chunky bits to pass through. The sauce then gets dammed up behind the chunks, until it spews out all over everything. Salsa comes in jars, not packets, people.

Piss-Me-Off Word Of The Day: Monetize

Does no one do anything for the sheer fun of it anymore? Do we have to find a way to attach a dollar sign to every single human endeavour? I swear, some people are like locusts in their incessant search to hunt down and collect every single penny they can find. I mean, I can understand "blegging" a little bit if you're dirt-poor and trying to run a blog where you're paying for a domain and bandwidth. For the rest of you, don't you have day jobs? For Pete's sake, if you need a few extra dollars, mow some yards, hold a garage sale, pimp out your dog. Don't load up your blog with ads that never load properly and freeze up the loading process.

Piss-Me-Off Word Of The Day II: Interstitial

Interstitials are those hellspawn web pages on MSM websites that force you to stay on their site. After you pass through one of the interstitials, your backspace or back button freezes on the MSM site's entry page, forcing you to close the window or use your History tab to get out of their site. Dumbasses.

Fridays That The Boss Is Out Of Town

Normally these would be good days. However, there exists in this den of thieves and miscreants a certain segment of the population that relishes in tale-bearing and backstabbing. The KGB, STASI and SAVAK have nothing on these folks. Therefore, I have to remain here parked behind my desk until they leave, instead of taking a long lunch and an early exit. Doesn't matter that I'm salary and not hourly, or that I'm mostly twiddling my thumbs today, it's all for appearances sake. Dumbasses!!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Urban Survival Kit

Lots of folksposting pics of pistolas and knives on their blogs. The liquor's just an added bonus!

Anyway, here's my addition to the gun pr()n. You can definitely see I'm in a lower tax bracket than some of the other participants...

Clockwise from the top:200ml Cayman Islands rumCharter Arms Off Duty .38 Special revolverCold Steel Scimitar15 rounds Magtech .38 Special wadcutter ammo.Those black dinguses holding the ammo are Bianchi speedstrips. Not as quick as a speedloader, but infinitely more concealable.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Five Weird Things

1) Some kid in Algebra class back in high school was "impressing" some girls by poking a thumbtack into his hand, barely drawing blood. I leaned over, whispered "He's a pussy", then pulled out my el cheapo Mexican switchblade and carved a slice into my forearm. Bled like a stuck hog. I have absolutely no idea what possessed me to do that. Still have the scar and the switchblade, but the blade-popper gizmo doesn't work anymore.

2) I went to a party at a lakehouse about 30 miles from college way back when. Got extremely loaded, and commenced to doing half-remembered ishin ryu katas on the floating dock. Some other intoxicated individual decided I was a Karate Kid wannabe, and desperately needed an ass-kicking. He gave it his best shot. After getting dumped three times in the lake, the asskicker had had enough, and drove his intoxicated self back to campus.The next morning, me & my girlfriend were 5 miles from the campus when we saw him skateboarding back to the college. He'd run out of gas about halfway back, and had been skateboarding all night. We stopped, picked him up, and fed him breakfast. We were great friends from then on.

3) Though I pledged a fraternity my freshman year, and went through some seriously heinous hazing, I never had to participate in the "elephant walk" or in a circle jerk. I'm pretty sure this puts me in the minority of frat pledges. Not that they'll admit it.

4) I can change out the starter in a Dodge Aspen station wagon in less time than it takes most people to get an oil change and lube job. Plus, I can do it in a cloudburst so bad that my ears were underwater as I lay on my back underneath the car. After swapping out the starter on the "War Wagon" at least a dozen times, I'd better be good at it...

5) My collection of Jack In The Box antenna balls could be considered... excessive.

Should teenagers and others in the Church express themselves to the world through blogs? Because of the obvious dangers; the clear biblical principles that apply; the fact that it gives one a voice; that it is almost always idle words; that teens often do not think before they do; that it is acting out of boredom; and it is filled with appearances of evil -- blogging is simply not to be done in the Church. It should be clear that it is unnecessary and in fact dangerous on many levels.

Let me emphasize that no one -- including adults -- should have a blog or personal website (unless it is for legitimate business purposes).

Boil down his screed, and it basically says "I don't like this, so you shouldn't do it. God says so!"

Take a look at the 4th line of this graph from the local rag, the 10.71% group:

There's your proof that we're surrounded by stupid people. Dumbasses, all of 'em.

#3: Islam

Yeah, yeah... 5 Pillars of Faith, Religion of Peace, yadda yadda yadda. Balance that against "honor" killings, suicide bombings, beheadings, going apeshit at the drop of a keffiyeh, and general dumbassery worldwide, and you've got an effed up religion, Abdullah. Get your shit together, and we might start treating you like adults instead of spoiled two-year-olds.

#4: Rosie O'Donnell

Does anyone actually like this screechy-voiced harridan? Who keeps putting this pumpkin-headed dyke on TV?

#5: Diuretics

If I'd known that these were gonna make me pee 8 times a day, I'd have had a urinal installed in my office. As it is, the only saving grace is the bathroom across the hall. I nearly exploded waiting for some camper to get finished the other day, and severly regretted not getting a large potted plant put in my office for emergencies.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Thanks, Eric...

When In Doubt, Always Blame The Redhead

After several posts this summer ragging on Eric the Straight White Guy, I resolved to point my acid pen keyboard elsewhere for a while. It's fun to have a aiming point for my snark, especially one as easygoing as Eric. Sooner or later, though, a breaking point is always reached, and he'll come after me with his knife, and I *am* a large slow-moving target.

Still, I have to point the blame squarely on Eric for this weekend's chain of events. He got to talking about Indian food last week, which set the gears in motion for a weekend of surrealism and indigestion.

After reading his post on Indian food, I had to go have some. I so rarely get to go, 'cause I hate going to nice sit-down places by myself, and most of my Houston-based friends and family don't know a raita from a roti, and have no desire to learn. So, instead of getting pampered at Ashiana (and paying for the privilege, I might add) I pointed the truck towards Westheimer Ave. to go get some Indian takeout from Masala Wok.

Masala Wok is a Indian/Chinese/Pakistani fusion kind of place. Not for everyone's taste, but the food is passably good, and even better, cheap. $6-9 for entrees, $5 for appetizers. That's about half of what a decent Indian joint will cost you. I couldn't decide between the saag paneer, the chicken tikka masala or the lamb curry, so in a fit of indecision and financial frippery, I got all three, figuring on making several meals out of it. With lots of basmati rice and naan, it was a bargain for $25.

It did make several meals, too. Well, three, anyway. One at 8 pm, another around midnight, and a third at 3 am, as I pulled a late-nighter watching the last 3 Smallville DVD's. Gluttony, thy name is El Capitan.

I was feeling awful tired following the TV marathon, so I lay down, and there's where the fun began. Off into Never-Never Land, assuming Never-Never Land is run by a cartel of hallucinogen peddlers and a demonic mix of Dadaists and day-glo nihilists.

Like most of my weirdest dreams, the mundane events have already faded, in order that the bizarro happenings can remain fresh on my fevered memory. In short, I was back in an apartment. Specifically, the two-bedroom model/showroom apartment in my old apartment complex in Carrollton, TX.

My roommate was some sort of sentient wombat-looking creature, only with thick Oreo-cookie colored plush fur, done up in an almost tribal pattern of chocolate browns and snowy white. It spent its day feeding lychee fruits one at a time to a pen full of guinea pigs using a long set of bamboo tweezers. The guinea pigs would razor open the lychees with their incisors, and gnaw holes through the soft fruit to peek through before eating them.

The wombat thing suffered from severe separation anxiety, and would start to bawl uncontrollably everytime I went to leave through the front door. I'd have to pick it up and hold it, while it continued to feed the guinea pigs. This went on for God knows how long, until I woke up with a severe need to pee & find the bottle of Maalox.

I literally staggered to the john, since my legs had gone all wonky from hanging off the side of the bed with insufficient circulation. Back to bed after a couple of antacids to quell the growing fire.

The next bout with the Sandman found me once again on the losing end. This time, I'm back on that maddeningly familiar yet completely foreign college campus, trying to find the Lit course that I so rarely attended. I've heard other people have a similar recurring dreams involving college. In this one I'm walking into a classroom late in the semester, uncomfortably aware I've attended maybe 1 out of 4 sessions, and if I had any brains, I'd drop the course. I can never find the department office to get the Drop forms, and then I'm somehow on the other side of campus, outside the loading dock of some huge Student Union building I don't recognize, before wandering off into the suburbs surrounding campus. I wish I could sketch the interiors and exteriors of the campus buildings and post them, in hopes that someone will recognize the college(s) I'm seeing. I'm sure I've just seen pictures of or driven by these unfamiliar places at some point in my life, and I'm not just making it up out of whole cloth.

I tossed and turned all morning, getting up every 1-2 hours for more antacid and water. Threw off my entire weekend.

Oh, sure, I could blame myself for poor impulse control and irregular sleeping habits. But it's so much more fun to blame Eric, don't ya think?

Hello there,this is not a joke. I'll just start off that way. I just wanna let you know that this picture was taken by my uncle of two of his children (the black boy, named Sammy, is obviously adopted). He has pictures posted on the internet and I guess someone took this one and put the words "Bitch stole my fish" on it. I first saw this picture on someone's myspace page about 4 months ago and now it's everywhere. Anyhow, I just thought I'd let you know where this picture came from. And that my uncle hates what's happened to it, but the rest of the family thinks it's hilarious.

The end.

Kristina

I'd kind of like to believe it's legitimate. Sounds plausible, and she certainly didn't have to take the time to email me over a post that's from a long while back.

Back in the early 90's, I sat & watched the movie on cable in a hotel in Louisville, Kentucky with the members of the bluegrass band I was roadie-ing for. Since the film's guest list included a virtual who's who of rock & roll, we had a ball watching the movie. We were also busy sampling other products of Kentucky at the time, including the bourbon, bluegrass, and fried chicken, but that's another tale.

There was one part of the film that was an absolute jaw dropper. None of us could believe what we were seeing. Keith Richards (Rolling Stones guitarist/junkie, for those of you who live in caves) got into an argument with Chuck Berry over how to play one of his songs.

We're talking Chuck Berry, here. 'Maybelline', 'Roll Over Beethoven', 'Johnny Be Good', duckwalking charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Chuck Berry. The man may not have invented rock & roll, but he was for damn sure in on the ground floor. And along comes Keef 30 years after the fact to tell him how to play his axe.

It's Just. Not. Done. Faux Pas Jumbeaux. It's not quite cricket, old chap, and all that. You just don't step into another man's house and try to tell him what's what.

So, I told you that story in order to tell you this one. It's the kinda thing I woulda let slide into oblivion, but the instigator showed his ass once, then came back for more. Dumbass play #1.

I posted a tale of general dumbassery on the part of some of my beloved co-workers.

Some commenter from out of left field named "desertman" deigns to correct me on my math, which needed no correcting. Dumbass play #2.

When the subject under discussion is per diems, it's pretty clear that there will be multiples of $40 involved. Plus, if you bothered to actually read this site, you knew I was gonna be gone for more that two days, so your $80 "correction" was invalid on its face. Dumbass play #3.

So, I posted in the comments what my true outlay for the trip was, then playfully (I thought, anyway) returned to the theme with which I started and ended the post, and ended the comment with "Dumbass".

Genius returns, sees my retort, and gets his feelings hurt. It's true, sarcasm and gentle joshing don't translate in the written word, but instead of of emailing me (using my highly visible email address in the sidebar) and asking me "Dude? What's that about? I was only trying to help!", I get the following comment:

Dumbass? Me? your the one that wrote the tale of two meals. Name calling just confirms your low rate mentality and your me me me attitude on life. No wonder your alone. May God grant you serenity and mauturity as you stumble through life.

Now, see? That's just rude. He tries to invoke the deity to defuse his previous three insults, but his point was made clear, as is his true character. Dumbass play #4, btw...

So, desertman, you're hereby found mostly guilty of being a dumbass. We have a 5-strike Dumbass rule around here, so please justify your actions using your last remaining strike. If my assorted commenters find it worthy, we'll keep your IP off the banned list.

Dog Butt Update

It Helps To Take A Second Look...

OK, judging from the comments, people had a hard time seeing the image of Jesus in the dog's butt. I got people saying it looks like Will Shakespeare, or Ben Franklin. One guy said it could be either Jesus or Mohammed.

They're right, of course. It is open to a bit of interpretation. So, in the interest of fairness, I pulled out the imaging software in an attempt to sharpen up the picture and make it a bit more obvious.

What I found astounded me... T'weren't Jesus at all! It WAS Mohammed!

OK, Graumagus, NOW you got your riots, beheadings, etc.! I just wish my limited artistic skills were better, or that'd be a 9 year old "wife" and not a torch in his hand...

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Is This A Joke?

Leave it to some peabrained hick up in Conroe to reinforce the world's belief that all Texans are ignunt yay-hoos.

Get this... during Banned Books Week, this guy decides that Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' isn't suitable for the classroom, and needs to be removed from the school's curriculum.

Here's a snippet from the news article. I highlighted the best part.

Alton Verm, of Conroe, objects to the language and content in the book. His 15-year-old daughter Diana, a CCHS sophomore, came to him Sept. 21 with her reservations about reading the book because of its language."The book had a bunch of very bad language in it," Diana Verm said. "It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people. ... If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."Alton Verm filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" Thursday with the district regarding "Fahrenheit 451," written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum."It's just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read 'Fahrenheit 451.' "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class."

Here's the highly-offended daughter and the doting dad. They look just *so* pleased with themselves, dont't they?

Mr. Verm, I'm gonna give you fifty cents worth of free advice. If you really & truly want to help your daughter in life, smack the bag of Cheesy Poofs out of her hand, get her up off of the couch and into some running shoes and a track suit, and chase her with your pickup truck until she runs 3 or 4 miles a day. Trust a fat guy on this, Mr. Verm. I was about that size in high school, and it only gets worse from there on out.

Your daughter's shattered nerves over a few unpleasant words in a freakin' book are a smidgen on the life of emotional misery and ostracization she's about to face. You and Jesus may love her, but damn few other people will.

Sigh. Trying to ban a book about burning banned books. Never underestimate the incredible dumbassery of stupid people....

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

It Had To Happen Sooner Or Later...

Time To Switch To Ranch Style Beans!

There's apparently a law (or strong FDA recommendation) in food labeling that you have to describe contents according to their proper proportions. I first became aware of this when as a young sprout I saw a package in the frozen food aisle that was labeled "Gravy & Beef Slices". Seems that by weight there was more juice than meat, hence the order of the wording.

Same thing with ingredients. They're listed in descending order of predominance. Usually. See, there's a few exceptions out there that somehow get past the usual safeguards.

Take Pork & Beans, for example. Everyone knows there's always an entire can of beans in sauce, and one tiny piece of mushy pork fat floating on top. If you're really lucky, there's a smidgen of actual meat attached. Still, it's labeled Pork & Beans, not Beans & Pork. I guess that's because we're so used to saying Pork & Beans, it wouldn't sound right the "legal" way. Also, the Pork & Beans lobbyists have probably worked out a deal where they're exempted from proper labeling.

I recall a joke from a long time back on some sitcom where they talked about one day when there was an unnatural chain of events at the Pork & Beans factory, and one lucky person would get a can of Pork & Beans where it was completely full of pork, and there would be one single bean in the can.

100,000

Aren't You Supposed To Trade In High-Mileage Blogs?

Rolled over the odometer this morning. I waited at the house trying to get a screencap of the Sitemeter log when it hit 100K. It stayed stuck on 99,996, and I just couldn't wait any longer before I had to head downtown.

I know this is old hat to some of you, and to others who drop by here, hell, you get this many hits in a week. Still, I'm kinda spiffed about it. Not bad for a lazy bastard that's got a penchant for dick and fart jokes.

Thanks for coming by for a visit, even those of you STILL searching for "Lake Conroe Alligator".

Monday, October 02, 2006

Two + Two Equals?? Wait, I Know This...

I'm Surrounded By Dumbasses

I'm not very good at math. I'll be the first to admit it. It took me two tries to get through Algebra I in high school. In my 7+ years of college, I dropped Business Math and Accounting so many times, I lost count. I still find myself counting on my fingers for relatively simple sums, though I can thankfully leave my socks on for higher-level figuring.

Numbers just aren't my thing. Never have been. Nevertheless, I can grasp some simple concepts that apparently elude those gifted math whizzes that make up the bulk of this organization's accountants.

I submitted my expense report from last week's trip,and apparently, some pencil-necked pencil pusher is having issues with it.

OK, let me take this slow, Poindexter, so you can get this entered in your HP calculator using RPN.

I have a $40 per diem while traveling. No set amounts for breakfast, lunch or dinner, just $40 I can spend however I see fit. Those are YOUR rules. Y'all set 'em, not me. That means if I choose to spend $40 on Pop-Tarts and marshmallow fluff, you get to shut your yap and assume I ate them for all 3 meals. If I choose to eat at Taco Bell at 10 am for breakfast and IHOP at 3 am for dinner, you get to shut your yap and deal with my odd eating proclivities.

Finally, when I go over my $40 per diem twice, and my receipts show $43.48 & $45.23 for the two days, I DO *NOT* OWE YOU $8.71! You simply pay me the $40, and I (literally) eat the extra.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

"Je Reviens En Trois Jours, Ne Te Laves Pas!"

Eric begged me to write something about the Napoleon/Josephine hygiene issue. Well, I'm nothing if not accomodating. Nice to know I'm the go-to guy for tales of unwashed twat...

I'd actually heard the story many years back. During my years at UTA, I became a Napoleonic War junkie. Closely following my discovery of the superlative Sharpe series of books by Bernard Cornwell, I spent most of 1991-1993 immersing myself in the years 1789 to 1815, from the French Revolution to Napoleon's final defeat.

I bought and/or borrowed dozens of books on the subject and read them with an intensity that really ought to have been devoted to Biology and Economics. I spent an entire summer painstakingly designing, plotting out and painting a 4 foot by 6 foot map of Waterloo (accurate to the 2nd decimal place, I'll have you know..) on hex-grid paper for a wargame I was designing.

Somewhere I've still got the MacPaint files on disk, where I carefully laid out every single British, French, Allied and Prussian military unit that was within 50 miles of Waterloo between June 16-18, 1815. Each tiny square (down to battalion level) had the unit ID, unit type, by infantry, artillery, cavalry, etc, and the relative strength, morale, & movement allotment whether in column, line or square. All that needed doing was to cut out the hundreds and hundreds of tiny squares and paste them onto plastic chips to have my gaming pieces. Oh, yeah... I knew that era.

It wasn't until I read Lady Longford's biography on the Duke of Wellington that I realized my knowledge of Napoleon the man was sorely lacking. I was never a huge fan of Napoleon, but I ingested some volumes on the life of Le Petit Caporal just to round out my knowledge. As I recall, it was a British writer with a bit of cheek that had added the anecdote about Napoleon's proclivities towards unwashed women.

As the (possibly apocryphal) tale goes, Napoleon once sent his Josephine a billet doux that said, "Je reviens en trois jours, ne te laves pas!" which translates (more or less) to "I return in three days, don't bathe."

In all honesty, I prefer the tale of Napoleon getting bit by Josephine's pet pug during a session of bed-bouncing. It's much more amusing to imagine a pug homing in on L'Empereur's pasty white fundament before "turning his flank", so to speak.

Since we're on the subject of odiferous women, though, I'll have to relate the tale of my friend Connecticut Yankee and Lainie the Skank. I'm sure he's spewing out beer onto his monitor as he reads this, as he's likely not given her a thought in nearly 12 years.

During the aforementioned years at UTA, Connecticut Yankee and I used to hang out at the Limey Bastard's apartment just off campus whenever we weren't in class or working. Various hangers-on and girlfriends used to come and go at infrequent intervals, and periodically we'd throw parties that would shake the foundations. Connecticut Yankee moved in for a brief period, though that didn't last long for reasons I don't recall.

Now, in those years, Connecticut Yankee was seriously on the prowl. There was a new female with him almost every month. Some were fun to hang out with, others, less so. MUCH less so... I can't remember exactly how Lainie entered the social circle, whether she was a pizza-delivery pal of Limey Bastard, or one of the many 18-20 year old girls that used my over-21 self as an alcohol connection. Yes, I contributed to the delinquency of minors. This surprises you, perhaps?

Somehow Connecticut Yankee decided that Lainie was acceptable as a snogging partner, and every so often LB and I would get to his place, open the door and find ConnYank and Lainie on the couch, with flushed faces and trying to adjust clothes back into some sort of order. LB and I would give ConnYank shit about his choice of women, since she did have that aura of skank about her.

LB & I kept waiting for the inevitable "gloat moment", when ConnYank would finally admit to putting a shot between the goalposts. I mean, sooner or later he's gotta get past 2nd base, we assumed.

Lainie stopped showing up so often at the apartment. I seem to recall she took some convincing that Connecticut Yankee wasn't interested anymore. It took a while, but we finally got the story from Connecticut Yankee. I'll try and relate his explanation, though I'll admit to it being 12 years ago, and I'm not 100% accurate as to his exact wording. But it went something like this:

"Dude, I was heading downtown! Had her pants off, and was heading for the groinal-crotchable area! When I got down to her stomach, though, there was this... smell. It just kept getting stronger the further down I went. So, I turned around, went right back up, kissed her, and told her I needed to go home. Got dressed and left."

ConnYank & I used to joke a lot about the movie 'Grumpy Old Men', specifically Burgess Meredith's role as an incredibly horny old man. He had a bunch of euphemisms for having sex that ran during the end credits. The funniest one was "taking the skin boat to Tuna Town". Funny how Connecticut Yankee was never quite so amused by that line after the Lainie incident...

UPDATE: Found the below picture online somewhere. It's one of a collection of drunk & passed out people that circulates on the web. I post it not so much because the girl looks quite a bit like Lainie, but because that IS the Limey Bastard's couch. It *has* to be. There can't be more than one couch in the world of that particular style and design that had that degree of filth and abuse heaped upon it. That couch was the product of 3 or 4 different owners in our circle of friends, all of which were less than careful about care and upkeep. I can only hope someone gave it a Viking funeral before it became an EPA/CDC hazard.